MARTINEZ — A Concord-based developer has asked the city to rescind all approvals of a plan to build 99 houses on a defunct Martinez golf course. Whether that means the controversial project is dead, or if it might be reborn in different form, depends on whom you ask.

Mayor Rob Schroder isn’t sure, but he was leaning Friday toward a pullout.

“I assume that’s what they’re saying,” said Schroder, who hadn’t seen the letter as of Friday but was aware of its contents. “I haven’t spoken to anyone from the builder about it.”

That builder is DeNova Homes, which has worked over the past few years with the former owners of the Pine Meadow Golf Course off Vine Hill Way, the Coward family, and with the city on a housing project for the golf course land.

Councilman Mark Ross said he had a short conversation with DeNova CEO Dave Sanson a few weeks ago and that it offered no clue about DeNova’s plans. But Ross said he can’t imagine the builder would simply walk away from years of planning or from the land it bought just months ago.

“I would doubt they are abandoning the project,” Ross said Friday. “I would think they’re going to rethink it and resubmit it. But, ultimately, I don’t know. I’m not sure they know.”

Martinez voters are scheduled to go to the polls in November to decide whether the 25.9 acres of the golf course off Vine Hill Way should be zoned to host the new houses.

The City Council has not yet considered the request by DeNova affiliate Civic Martinez LLC, which now owns most of the former golf course, to cancel all development approvals. Civic Martinez bought most of the course from the Coward family in July.

The council will probably take it up Feb. 3, in closed session.

Schroder theorized that the November election may be influencing DeNova’s actions now.

“I’m just assuming they didn’t want to go through the process of a campaign,” he said.

The golf course, opened in 1965, had been losing money for years before it closed in April. A year ago, the City Council voted to rezone the golf course land from open space/recreation uses to residential use to help pave the way for homebuilding. But a group of local residents, Friends of Pine Meadow, led a referendum drive to reverse that rezoning and got enough petition signatures to force the council to either rescind the rezoning or let voters decide the issue. The council did the latter, and the land rezoning is up in the air pending the outcome of that election.

Tim Platt of Friends of Pine Meadow said Friday he can’t imagine DeNova won’t come back with another project, possibly one with more houses. He said the November referendum election remains important.

“We believe the city is legally required to follow that (referendum) path, and we believe they will,” said Platt, whose group sees the Pine Meadow land as, potentially, the city’s last big park.

Schroder on Friday echoed his feeling from a year ago that the former golf course is a good place for infill housing. “I still think I voted the right way,” he said.

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